News

Larry will be working with filmmaker David McDonald in the coming months on a new documentary featuring Larry’s song, Tibet (Peace, Lovingkindness, Compassion), written in honor of Gyatsho Tshering and the Tibetan people.

The film project, which will feature members of the Tibetan community in Minnesota, is in preparation for the upcoming visit by the Dalai Lama to Minnesota.

Join us Sunday, October 3rd as some of the Twin Cities finest musicians and singers come together to support VEAP, the largest food shelf in Minnesota. It’s an exciting musical event you won’t want to miss!

Included in the line-up are Members of Minnesota’s First Family of Jazz; Patty Peterson and the Peterson Family, R&B singer Mick Sterling, jazz singer Arne Fogel, Larry Long, pianist Mary Beth Carlson, Maud Hixson & Rick Carlson from the Wolverines, vocalist Julie Esterley, 40’s jazz group “First Things First”, and the “Emmaus Praise Band” along with other celebrity musicians from the Twin Cities area.

VEAP (Volunteers Enlisted to Assist People) is a non-profit agency serving low-income families, individuals, elderly and disabled persons in the communities of Bloomington, Edina, Richfield, and South Minneapolis. VEAP offers emergency food to over 7,500 low-income monthly, over half of which are children. VEAP also provides transportation to the elderly and disabled, along with back-to-school & holiday toys to thousands of low-income children in the metro area. Visit their website at www.veapvolunteers.org.

Jerry asked us to thank everyone who shared their kind words, songs and money in support of his life work last Tuesday evening at Coffee Grounds. Jerry requested that folks reach out directly to him through writing to:

Jerry Rau
PO Box 13014
Minneapolis, MN 55414

We are now closing down PayPal! With gratitude to everyone who pitched in.

As many of you also know by now, Jerry was admitted into the VA yesterday, but today he’s feeling great and hopes to be out of the hospital very shortly. So the evening with the Jerry Rau Band is still on for Oct. 2nd, 7:30 – Armatage School, 6625 Penn Avenue South in Minneapolis 612-861-3308.

One a last note it’s Jerry’s 72nd birthday this September 28th. Happy Birthday Jerry.

We had a blast at Lake Nokomis on Saturday celebrating the monarch and enjoying great food, music and company. We had a great turnout with hundreds of people coming out to enjoy the day and learn more about the monarch.

And the festivities lasted well into the night over at Merlins Rest, where Larry and friends had the after-party.

Thanks to everyone who helped out with the festival and thanks to Merlin’s Rest for hosting the after-party.

Join Larry, Fiddlin’ Pete, and special guests Lonnie Knight, Doug Lohman and Joe Savage next Tuesday at The Coffee Grounds in Falcon Heights. They’ll be playing a benefit concert for Jerry Rau, a Vietnam veteran whose health issues recently left him unable to perform around town.

This benefit is our small way of raising money to support Jerry through the coming winter and to give something back to a man who continues to serve his country and community through song.

Larry will be opening for brothers Billy and Ricky Peterson, who’ll be performing with the Steve Miller Band Tribute (current and former Steve Miller Band members). Proceeds for this event will go to The Salvation Army – Harbor Light Center, who provide transitional housing with supportive services to formerly homeless veterans.

Check out the feature on Elders’ Wisdom, Children’s Song over at America.gov! It’s got a video, photo gallery and some more in-depth articles about the program and some of the elders from past celebration.

Join Larry and others at the American Legion in Austin, MN, this Saturday. The afternoon will be spent sharing memories with old friends, enjoying music, and looking to our future by honoring our past. Speakers will include Jim Guyette, Ray Rogers, Pete Rachleff and Pete Winkles. Music will be provided by Larry Long and others."

Where: The American Legion (809 12th Street Southwest, Austin MN)When: 2pm through the afternoon (Dinner will be served at 6pm)Cost: There will be a small fee to cover dinner.

MPR’s three-part series, "Austin at a Crossroads: 25 Years After the Hormel Strike," begins Monday on All Things Considered. Two songs, "Proud to March with P-9" by Dennis Jones and "Which Side Are You On" with new words and vocals by Larry Long & Carrie Gerendasy are featured in the series.

Larry produced and released the album Boycott Hormel: Live From Austin to raise funds for the Adopt-a-Family program to assist striking workers, raising over $5,000.

You can find photos, interviews and additional reporting for this project on the MPR website at http://www.mprnewsq.org

Larry’s going to be performing with Kevin Kling next Tuesday at the Open Door Theatre for the series Two Chairs Telling:

“The Twin Cities’ most eclectic storytelling series Two Chairs Telling is returning to intimate Open Eye Theatre for 2010 with five months of pairings mixing and matching storytellers, musicians, poets, and spoken words artists who lean towards the lyrical narrative and the narrative lyric.”

If you’ve never seen either of these two live, you won’t want to miss this one. The two will sit down for the evening to swap stories, songs and friendship bracelets.

Well, probably not the bracelets. Although that would be sort of awesome.

Performance starts at 7:30pm. Tickets are $10 (and the low low price of $5 for an additional ticket). More details here and here.

Music has great healing power. It makes grown people cry. It brings laughter to the faces of those in pain. It unites thousands of people to withstand the force of Bull Connor’s fire hoses in those times of Civil Rights in Alabama. It soothes a teething baby to sleep. It opens up the heart of a 10 year old boy, incarcerated in a 12×12 foot cell in a Gulf Coast county still recovering from the after-effects of Hurricane Katrina.

The boy’s name is Michael. He’s one of the children whose rights are being championed by the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Mississippi and New Orleans’ offices.

One year ago the detention center he’s being held in housed over 60 juveniles. Some four to a cell. Two in a bunk, two the floor, wrapped in a World War II woolen gray Salvation Army blanket beside an open toilet. The metal cells resemble the inside of a boxcar decorated with toothpaste-smudged grafitti. The youth were denied educational, medical and mental health services. They were in lockdown 23 hours a day.

Through their successful advocacy the Southern Poverty Law Center uncovered these unspeakable abuses, which included the sexual exploitation and assault of teenage girls by male staff. The SPLC secured reforms inside the detention center. The most important reform is a hard population cap that reduces by more than half the number of youths exposed to the horrors of imprisonment. In order to achieve these reforms and to ensure their sustainability, SPLC works hand in hand with the youth detained in the facility, and impresses upon the staff the kids’ incredible strength and potential.

SPLC contacted me to work with Shakti Belway, Director of Community Engagement and staff attorney, to begin giving a voice to these children through narrative, photography and song.

Shakti also brought in hip-hop artists from the Gulf Coast to collaborate: Skipp Coon, Truth Universal and Chuck “Lyrikill” Jones. Not only at the Detention Center, but with youth and elders in the New Orleans community.

Over four days we created ten hours of digitally recorded interviews, several hundred photographs, and five collectively written songs recorded live on my digital recorder! All bearing witness to the failing education system and endless cycle of incarcerated youth, often for minor offenses such as truancy or running away from home.

Ten year old Michael* wrote about being suddenly woken by prison guards from his dream where he was the superhero, Wolverine, with metal claws that could rip its way “out of here to go home.” Michael, in his own words, sang, “I want to go home!”, a call and response version of Chicky-Chicky Boom.

Three young incarcerated women each created interview questions and then took turns interviewing each other, playing the role of Oprah Winfrey. These questions became the first verse of their song “Freedom:”

Why do we make
the choices that we make
why do we do
the things we do
Why is it so hard
To get a second chance
In this life one should live
To sing and dance
In this world of freedom, freedom, freedom!

They also addressed their biggest fears—being incarcerated in a predominantly male facility with male guards:

My greatest fear
To not go home
To be stuck here
To be left alone
To be raped
By prison guards
When looking back
On the past
Life’s been hard
In this world of freedom, freedom, freedom!

Lastly, they addressed the injustices of the system, including the court process which seems to ignore the perspectives of youth:

Because I’m a kid
They feel I don’t know
Right from wrong
But I know so
It takes more than one
To prove someone wrong
At least two sides
And this is mine
In this song
In this world of freedom, freedom, freedom!

While I was working with the young women, Skipp Coon worked with three young incarcerated men. One of them created a polyrythmnic beat track using two toothbrushes against the jailhouse wall that we recorded in GarageBand. We then tracked all of their layered choruses and verses to their rap “Diz Here”. Here’s a few of their words:

. . .
Darkness up in the cell
It feel like hell
Hearing voices and seeing shit
Shit I was scared

Stay in school
Go by the rules
And keep it cool
And keep it smoove
You know wat to do
Don’t play hooky dude

Cuz dis drama is really cruel
They’ll thrash you
In a minute
Or maybe two

Permissible allowed to do
what you achieve
and be the best that you can do
anything is true
since my grandma done lost her life
I wanna get right
HCJDC bruh dis shit ain’t the life

. . .
visualize
da better time
instead of being
in a cell
enclosed in mind
takin orders now

you got the officers that treat you wrong [stupid lil bustaz]
the judge who won’t send you home

. . . .
Ya mama want you home bruh
Don’t push away from her

You, on the streets you doin wrong
Some popel spare ya life
Some people lenienit but some
Other folks they take ya life [lord]

The following Monday two community elders from New Orleans, DJ Markey and Yvette Thierry, spoke to and were interviewed by over twenty youth between the 7th and 12th grade.

DJ spoke of his and their shared fight to further integrate our public schools for all children of disability, including autistic children like their son. He also spoke about his love of New Orleans with these amazing words:

New Orleans. Jazz was born here and the heart of life is improvisation. You have to make it happen when it’s happening. You can’t run to the closet and try to hide. Always thought jazz was a grand lesson for everyone. All have to learn to improvise. Like I said I have no regrets in that regard. We were doing the work as we were supposed to be doing it. It’s what chooses you, not what you always choose.

Yvette talked about getting their voices heard. As she said, “I’m not asking for a hand out but a hand up!”

They both addressed the disastrous affects of Katrina, not only on the physical and emotion level, and how when they came back to rebuild their community the powers that be began to destroy everything that they had worked for, including shutting down existing schools and replacing them with charter schools that fail far too many students and don’t provide full inclusion.

DJ shared these thoughts about his first return to the city:

I drove back where my mother and father were and back there on Desire and Florida Streets; and there wasn’t a car there. Everything was deserted. There in the middle of the street was a buzzard. It was only me and that buzzard in the intersection. I never seen a bird like this in the city before. They show up when there’s something dead. It was a transcending experience. The buzzard was just looking at me and saying , “Why are you here? Everything is dead!” For which I said, “If you’re not into rebuilding here this is not a place to be.”

The participating youth were asked to go home and write down their thoughts for lyrics the next day. They not only came back with their written thoughts, but some had written complete songs. Here’s an incredible set of lyrics by a 15 year old boy. The name of his song is Dreams:

Wake up every morning, seeing other people dead,
We don’t try to help them out we just laugh at them instead
We try to fight the law, but we end up in jail
There is only two ways to make it, that’s either heaven or hell

So reach for the stars and don’t you ever look back
Haters are there to try and knock you off track
Just keep dreaming, and don’t let it go to waste
Be ready for the challenges that you may face

Dreaming is our life, we are living in this white world
Kids are going to jail, and men are raping little girls
How can you complain when you haven’t tried to change
Times are very different and it’s feeling kind of strange.

So believe in yourself, take care of your own
Don’t let no one tell you, you are not strong
Perform for yourself and don’t stand in the crowed
Cause the more you stand out, you’ll make New Orleans proud

I sit here

We broke into two groups again; one group joining me to write melody and song, the other working with Truth Universal and Chuck “Lyrikill” Jones to write spoken word.

In my group Cassandra Tran, a young biracial Vietnamese and Northern European girl, came with a spoken word poem. She asked me to play a blues pattern which concluded with a line “change these ways”, which immediately turned into the chorus and name for our song. The song concludes with Cassandra reciting her poem:

No more prisons
No more drugs
No more pain
I’m in need of love
From somebody
Who really cares
Someone who understands
Who’s always there
Justice, freedom, equality
Time to rebuild
Our Community

Change these ways

No more corruption
No more fear
No more situations
Where good folks disappear
Into their bedrooms
Into the night
No more cover up
It just ain’t right
Time to build-up unity
Time to rebuild our community

Change these ways

Time to be heard
To create good jobs
I’m sick & tired
Of my kids being robbed
Without an education
Opportunity
It’s time to rebuild our community

Change these ways

We live a life for a dream,
Tryin’ to aim for our
Goals
Along the way we plant
The seeds,
Our story starts to take hold
Mama said build your ambitions
Daddy fought for a new revolution
Not gonna live in the old days,
We’re gonna change these ways.

Change these ways

After we recorded Change These Ways in the backyard of where we were gathered, we quickly broke down the recording equipment to record the beat track and then layered spoken verses and chorus to their Hip-Hop song called This Is Life.

The plan now is for all of us to get back together in the recording studio and re-record our shared works with support from New Orleans musicians, with the focus always on the youth. By June we hope that many of the incarcerated youth will be out of the detention center.

A few weeks ago, my wife Jacqueline and I traveled on the California Zephyr—an Amtrak Train running from Chicago to Reno–with three other couples: Fiddlin’ Pete & Kathryn, Scott & Pam, and Kris & Karen. We called this journey the Liberty Train, with the goal of playing music across the western states.

Amtrak didn’t know we were coming.

Most all of us on this journey had been friends for nearly 40 years. We met in St. Cloud, Minnesota, where we either grew up and went to college, or married someone who did.

Fiddlin’ Pete and I have played music together through most of these years. When we were in our twenties, he and I hopped freight trains together. The most memorable was the ride we took across the Great Divide from Missoula, Montana to Washington State. En route we would stage fake fistfights in our open boxcar for the waiting cars we would pass at intersections.

During this journey Pete reminded me of crossing an area called “Moon Canyon”, so-called because of the river rafters who would drop their pants and moon the passing freight trains. We had that affection bestowed upon us as the train roared above canyons that dropped thousands of feet below the trestle before heading into a mile long cavernous tunnel to get to the other side.

Also on board with us on that ride was Dubious, a beautiful dog with golden hair and black markings on the tips of her ears, tail and all four paws.

I got Dubious in a dream. One night I dreamt that I was going to get a dog. The next day I walked down to the local bookstore and shared the dream with a friend who ran the place. A young couple overheard my conversation and said they said they just gotten a puppy. They also mentioned that they were about to leave for Los Angeles. The next day I got a call from my friend at the bookstore, telling me to come on down and get my dog. Sure enough, the young couple had realized they weren’t able to take a puppy with them on their trip, so they passed her onto me. They had named her Doobie after the Doobie Brothers or the slang word for a joint. I called her Dubious as in doubtful. It stuck.

——–

Fiddlin’ Pete can calm a raging storm with his bow! When we walked the tracks to hop a boxcar in the freight-yards of Missoula, Montana, a Yard Bull or railroad cop came running up and told us to get out of the yard. Pete asked him if he would like to hear a fiddle tune before we left. To our amazement the yard bull said yes. After listening to a 10-minute version of Cumberland Gap and the Orange Blossom Special, he pointed towards one of the trains and said, “That’s the train you want to ride. Get in the third card over. Make sure you hammer a wooden wedge into the side of the open door so it doesn’t slam shut when the train starts to roll. And whatever you do–don’t tell anyone I gave you permission to ride.”

That trip was the start of our lifelong fascination with trains. And the Liberty Train trip was a way of going back to our train-hopping roots. (Albeit in a more comfortable fashion. This time, we bought tickets for a sleeper room).

The sleeper room (so-called, I assume, because that’s about all you can do in there) is roughly four feet by eight feet. There are two sofas facing each other with left about a foot to spare for personal belongings. Lastly, there were two large windows to look out onto the world.

At bedtime the two sofas folded together into one bed. An upper bunk dropped from above with a foot and half between you and the ceiling.

To pull your pants off took a fair amount of work. Trying to pull them back on when you had to go the bathroom in the middle of night was near impossible. In the old days of open boxcars, you’d just hang out the open door and let it rip.

Our car was number 531. It was under the charge of Willy the Porter. He made it very clear that he didn’t want anyone but him opening and closing the beds. No explanation why. It was just one of Willy’s rules. Willy ran a tight ship–or in this case, a tight sleeper car. It was his little fiefdom.

It was Willy who first informed us of another rule: it is “against the protocols” of Amtrak to allow live music on the train because it might offend somebody. Who that “somebody” was, he couldn’t say. All we knew was that somebody was going to get pissed off and that somebody was Willy, so we did our best to humor him.

It’s important to note that when we first boarded the train Jacqueline and I discovered that all of our friends had sleepers on the upper level. Our room was the only one on the lower lever, which meant that our dream of sharing this train ride with our friends was in danger.

I talked to Willy about changing, but all of the sleepers on the second level were booked. So I approached an elderly couple in the sleeper across from Chris and Karen, and once I explained our predicament they graciously agreed to change rooms with us.

Willy told us we could stay in their room until Denver. At that point somebody else would be boarding the train and would be given the room. Somewhere between Chicago and Denver, though, Willy decided he liked us. He either negotiated with or simply told the other folks who had reserved our room that they would be sleeping in our old room on the lower level. Fiefdom indeed.

——–

One of the many benefits of a sleeper car is that you get three square meals a day.

Our waiter during mealtime was an elderly African American man who had worked for Amtrak for as long as Fiddlin’ Pete and I had been playing together. He had the most amazing ability to walk down the aisle of a moving train, carrying plates of food and drinks without spilling a drop. His flat footed feet shuffled outward, while his knees served as a shock absorber to prevent his body from tumbling.

Since he was doing all the work I assumed that he was the “Willy the Porter” version of the dining car. He laughed at the suggestion and turned his head toward a younger man counting a wad of money in his left hand. “He’s the boss.”

——

It’s important to note that if you disobey the orders of any of the Willy the Porters it can be quite serious. The first time they give you a warning. The second time it’s more like a scolding. The third time you’re booted off the train.

The first day we behaved ourselves. When nightfall came, though, Fiddlin’ Pete and I went into the lounge car separately with our instruments to play some music.

Pete scouted it out first and it looked good. I followed. We asked some folks if they wanted to hear some music. Everyone wanted us to play. So we straddled our legs over the top of a couple of chairs.

Just like in that freight yard we played a couple quick fiddle tunes that got everybody in the mood. We began to mix it up with some old sing-a-long train songs like the Wabash Cannonball, Rock Island Line, and—appropriately enough—the California Zephyr. People gathered around and sang along with us. An elderly man there with his wife knew a lot of songs by Johnny Cash and Tennessee Ernie Ford and soon began to lead us all. Later he told us that singing on the California Zephyr made their trip.

Within our growing circle in the lounge car were folks traveling from Japan, Australia, Germany, and all parts of the United States. A young Australian man even joined in with a hand drum. Folks from other countries seemed very enchanted hearing live music. From their comments and looks in their eyes this was the America they were looking for—raw and rebellious.

But it wasn’t long until we saw Willy the Porter’s head pop up from the stairway coming up from the lower level. I was waiting for him to say something, but he just stood and listened with a big smile.

Around that time another crewman on the train by the name of Brian came weaving down the aisle through the lounge car with a great big grin on his face. He quickly came back with a digital movie camera and filmed us as we played the Orange Blossom Special. (You can see his butt blocking our camera:

We called it a night around 11 o’clock.

After breakfast the next day we sat in the lower level of the lounge car. We were outside of Denver and heading up the grade into the Rocky Mountains. We were beginning to see hillsides of dying timber, devastated by the pine beetle.

Brother Scott’s birthday was in a couple of days, and his wife Pam wanted to celebrate early by giving Scott a few gifts. It soon became apparent why. There were a clacker, wooden block, jaws harp, and a triangle.

Scott, who owns and runs a small manufacturing firm called Cords Set, has always wanted to play music. The Liberty Train was his chance.

When Fiddlin’ Pete and I pulled out our instruments, though, the Willy the Porter of the lounge car came right up and said, “I heard that you guys were playing music on the upper deck last night. It is the general policy of Amtrak to not allow people to play music on the train. I’m sorry but you can not play music on the train today.”
“Tonight?”
“Not tonight either.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Not tomorrow either.”
“Is this rule written down somewhere, so we can read it?”
“Yes. It’s in the book.”
“Where’s the book?”
“I don’t have the book.”
“Can you go get the book?”
“It’s final. You can’t play music on the train today unless the conductor says otherwise.”

The Liberty Train had just been derailed.

Scott was left standing there with a handful of percussion instruments he wasn’t allowed to play. Not one to be deterred, Scott came up with a plan. We’d get off the train when it made a ten minute stop at Grand Junction, CO, and play music at the station. And that is what we did.

Soon Fiddlin’ Pete and I were serenading a father with his baby daughter outside of car number 532. Scott danced around like Bojangles with that triangle in his hand.

Later that day a young kid came running up to us and looked at Scott, as if he’d seen a rock star, and said, “Aren’t you the guy who played the triangle?”

Our journey ended in Millpond, CA, at the music festival there. You can watch a clip of us playing here:

On this journey I wrote a song to not only honor the California Zephyr, but more specifically to honor the man who gave me the boots I was wearing on this trip. His name is Olen Edwards. The verses to his song, My Old Friend, tell the story.

I’ve walked the world over
In these boots of my old friend
From Boston, Massachusetts
Back on home again
From the State of Oklahoma
To Chicago on a plane
On the California Zephyr
To Reno on the train

My old friend. My old friend.
It won’t be long until I’m with you again

In these boots of Ostrich leather
On Sunday he would preach
In small country churches
From the pulphit he would teach
The road to salvation
With a guitar on his back
On the California Zephyr
Heading down the railroad tracks

My old friend. My old friend.
It won’t be long until I’m with you again

These boots are anointed
That’s what his wife said
When she gave them to me
While he lay in bed
In a veterans home
Where old warriors go
On the California Zephyr
Taking me back home

My old friend. My old friend.
It won’t be long until I’m with you again

Size 11B
The same size I wear
When I put them on
Felt like they were always there
In moments of decision
Looking down I hear him say
On the California Zephyr
On this guitar I play

My old friend. My old friend.
It won’t be long until I’m with you again